Moeller hails House passage of ‘first significant budget measure’

‘Early Action Savings Bill’ already on the move in the Senate

February. 4, 2009

OLYMPIA – Calling it “the first significant budget measure that we’ve passed this year,” state Rep. Jim Moeller today (Wednesday, Feb. 4) noted that the “Early Action Savings Bill” is already on the move in the Senate.
“This legislation makes early cuts to the current operating budget to save money in the upcoming new operating budget,” said Moeller, D-Vancouver, who is a co-sponsor of the measure.
Between now and June 30 of this year, the bill (House Bill 1694) would save more than $630 million from the current operating budget.
“It’s very unusual for the Legislature to take such a huge budget step so early in a legislative session,” he pointed out.
“But the $6 billion revenue hole we face is a very unusual budget nightmare, to say the least. And the economic hard times confronting families and businesses is, to say the absolute least, unusual – and devastating.”
Moeller said it’s pivotal that the Legislature “get down to the inevitable hard and devastating choices sooner rather than later. The quicker we start these unavoidable cuts, the more money we can save later.”
The biggest percentage of budget savings – more than $460 million – would come out of programs in the state Department of Social and Health Services.
He said that this first budget bill of 2009 “isn’t the end of the discussion. It’s only the beginning. When we do adopt a new operating budget in a few months, no one is going to be happy with the level of cuts we will have no choice but to make.
“Unlike at the federal level, a fair amount of bipartisanship – so far, at least – has characterized our state House approach to the necessary tackling of large, inescapable budget cuts.”
The final House vote on this legislation was a bipartisan 83-13.
“We didn’t lurch into this economic hole as Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians or whatever. And we’re not going to climb out of it as party-partisans, either,” Moeller stated.
This House-passed budget bill is waiting for action in the Senate Ways & Means Committee.